According to etymonline.com the word data traces back to 1640 and is "a fact given or granted,". It is also the word we use so frequently in so many different contexts. In the new age data is "transmittable and storable information by which computer operations are performed". Gigrich.com

Now let's look at how that data has evolved over a period of time. Thinkautomation.com has an amazing article outlining the evolution of data. The article is a must-read. It talks about the first data collection event traced back almost 19,000 years ago based on the excavation of a bone that had notches on it. The notches on that bone are probably the earliest form of recording data. Jumping a few 1000 years ahead the article talks about the tabulation of death records maintained by the church (a somber report indeed). The man behind this exercise, John Grant, is considered the founder of demographics, another term we throw around so often. Fast-forwarding a couple of centuries ahead we see the rise of the census. The scale and quantum of data gave birth to the problem of how to record additional information that the census was generating. That problem was solved by the invention of Herman Hollerith who created a machine based on Joseph Jacquard's punching machine. This is the same system designed by Jacquard that would lead to programmable machines designed by IBM. On the same subject, another article published on weforum.com is quite an interesting read.

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